


mr. and mrs. spooky (& other naming rituals)

by babycomebach



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e17 E.B.E., Episode: s07e19 Hollywood A.D., F/M, Flirting, Office Sex, Sharing a Bed, Trope: Mulder Loves Scully, Water Bed Ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 9,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25774561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babycomebach/pseuds/babycomebach
Summary: everybody loves special agent dana scully.they just don't understand why she has to hang out with spooky mulder all the time.(vignettes set nebulously from s1-s7.)
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 22
Kudos: 214





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone knows Special Agent Dana Scully. She was top of her class at Quantico, widely regarded as the brightest up-and-coming Washington transfer. She has an instinctual way of interacting with the people in the Hoover building, steady and warm and friendly in a way that seems at odds with her job in the morgue. 

It’s appealing, especially when the other company to be found in house seems to embody FBI doggedness, intensity, grit. When everyone is trying to get to the top of the Hoover ladder, no one is keen on being steady or warm or friendly. Special Agent, Doctor Dana Scully is the only person who doesn’t act like she’s trying to climb to the top but may just float there anyway.

It’s considered an honor and a privilege to receive an autopsy report from Doctor Scully. She’s the most thorough and consistent autopsy doctor in Washington, and maybe all of New England. Word is that her reports have solved cases by themselves. 

And what’s understood about Special Agent Dana Scully, of course, is a universal truth that’s rarely spoken aloud: _Gorgeous. Total knockout. Fiery redhead. Wry, quick, kind._ **_Oh my God_** _, perfect._

So it’s such a terrible shame to everyone—her included, surely—that she has to spend all her time in the basement with Spooky Mulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my first txf fic oh god oh fuck. insp. by the trope that scully is very sexy and everyone who sees her falls in love because, same. 
> 
> i have all of these vignettes written!! so will most likely be posting them quite fast. please feel free at any time to give me the validation i so desperately crave. (also: you guys are all so talented, holy shit.)


	2. Chapter 2

Everyone knows Special Agent Fox Mulder. He was top of his class at Quantico, widely regarded as the best Violent Crimes profiler before 1991. The Spooky thing arose sometime  _ after _ 1991, when Special Agent Fox Mulder willingly moved down into the basement and threw himself into pursuit of E.T., Extraterrestrials. No one takes the credit for the nickname—it’s one of those things that everyone was thinking, really, so the fact of who said it first is mostly inconsequential. 

What’s certain—or most likely—about the situation are a few things:

Special Agent Fox Mulder was talking to lab techs, or was it the communications department, or was it a couple of the agents back in Violent Crimes? Inconsequential. Special Agent Fox Mulder was talking to  ~~ someone ~~ anyone who would listen about an anomaly in mountainous regions which resulted in over two dozen residents waking up on their twenty-sixth birthday with a third kidney. (“And, get this—“ he had said, his eyebrows raising and hand gesturing imploringly, “—these people, with more kidneys than they should, they all have identical scars. And identical memories, too, of being taken from their homes in the middle of the night—“) 

Special Agent Mulder asked for a blood sample, or a rental car, or over two dozen birth records and left the room with long strides, oblivious to the aggressive click of the door behind him or the overly amused eyebrows waggling in his wake. 

There was silence in the room, which was dominated primarily by the mutual understanding that there’s no way this guy is serious; this has to be some huge joke. 

The silence didn’t last for long. Someone said something like “That guy’s spooky, huh.” 

No denying that, is there.


	3. Chapter 3

The origin of Special Agent Dana Scully’s partner nickname—Mrs. Spooky—is something that’s up for more heavy debate. That’s mostly because, as a rule, it’s not approved of. It’s never used in front of her, in any case, or if it is it’s just by those who don’t think _Gorgeous. Total babe. Smart as hell._ **_Oh my God_** _, perfect_ when they see her. 

As a rule, Mrs. Spooky is really only ever lumped in when Mr. Spooky is around to get just that much more offended by its use. If there’s anything to his credit, it’s that he recognizes like the rest of them that Dana Scully is of a different, and vastly superior, kind. 

And, generally, these particular name-calling sessions are followed by private thoughts of: _This idiot. He has no idea what he’s got. Too worried about chasing flashing lights and disappearing UFOs to seize the obvious opportunity. I’m telling you, if I was him, I’d be doing it all different._


	4. Chapter 4

The first time she meets the Lone Gunmen, it’s purely out of necessity. He wouldn’t take her unless he needed their help because it will undoubtedly result in some kind of minor, personal disaster; this is like taking the girl he’s in love with to meet his parents for the first time, parents he knows she will dislike and who will drive a wedge between them. 

What he will refuse to tell her, but what he probably should tell her, as he gives her their preamble is: they are his best (and only) friends, they already know too much about her because he has told them too much about her, they are going to make her uncomfortable in one way or another. She could have likely inferred that last part on her own—they’re a vigilante band of three called the Lone Gunmen. 

So, all things considered, the first time she meets the Lone Gunmen it goes better than he’d ever expect.

Frohike hits on her, which no woman has ever appreciated, Byers rips apart her twenty bucks, and he has to act as mediator before Scully rips their throats out. They are ridiculous, he knows. And he knows she must think it. She must also think this is the biggest nonsense she’s ever heard, even if the boys are on the right track most of the time. 

It’s even worse that they make Mulder look like the bad guy: they boast about knowing her from him (if they mention _any_ of the things he has said about her, he will be the one to rip their throats out), and they tell her that his theories are more crazy than theirs. Scully likely thinks that they four schmucks are on equal levels of stupid. He’ll spare the humiliation of asking her to confirm that suspicion. But she takes it in stride like she always does, and he can’t help but wonder if it’s because she’s an especially good spy or just an especially generous person. 

And the truth is: he doesn’t introduce her to the Lone Gunmen out of necessity. Sure, he needed them, but he could’ve just called. He introduces her to the Lone Gunmen because she _is_ the girl that he is in love with, even then, and sure she’s supposed to be spying on him and she thinks he’s ridiculous and she barely ever believes him and he is supposed to prefer working alone, but—

He has come to find that he doesn’t prefer working alone. He preferred working alone when he’d just been “demoted” to the basement, even when Diana was his partner, but Scully has somehow managed to convince him that he doesn’t know what he’d do without her. It seems inevitable that someday she’ll file a report that will ridicule him completely, and she’ll start calling him Spooky with a glint in her eye that looks more mocking than reluctantly fond, and she’ll get reassigned. He has a need—that must be subconscious—to impress her enough that she’ll stay. How to impress her, though, he’s not sure: maybe it’s getting her to believe, maybe it’s proving her wrong, maybe it’s just occasionally admitting that she can be right. Not that it matters. He hasn’t really done any of those things.

It’s unlikely, too, that he will ever get her to stay through any concerted effort of his own. He is too stubborn by nature and does not think actively enough about ways he could get her to stay. There are always X Files to pursue instead, or a run to go on, or magazines to flip through (and mixing Scully with his magazines—dangerous, dangerous, dangerous). So he tries not to think about it at all. 

If he’s sure of anything, though, it’s that he’s doing something wrong. That he’s missing some opportunity for something. It would never occur to him that the opportunity could fulfill everything he’s ever looked for, really, even if it doesn’t have the same name. He’s just missing something. 

So that he’ll soon be by himself in the basement again is inevitable. Inevitable enough that he doesn’t need to bother getting her a desk. 

&&&

“So, Mulder’s got the hots for the new girl,” Langly says. It’s the next day. Over eggs benedict. 

(Take out costs way too damn much, and they have to budget where they can. They have enough time on their hands. Frohike is learning to cook.)

“I’m not the only one who noticed this. Can’t be. You saw how he looks at her.”

Frohike comes to the table in an apron and with a skillet of hashbrowns, and says, sagely, “You can’t blame him.” He wolf-whistles. 

It’s not their style, but no one disagrees. She’s beautiful, in the kind of way that seems both traditional and otherworldly. Plus, she doesn’t take any of Mulder’s shit, which is entertaining. They appreciate entertainment in all its forms. 

“I think she’s going to be good for him,” Byers says, after some reflection. He’s likely the only one of them that’s going to like eggs benedict after this experiment. “Mulder could use the company. He doesn’t have very many friends.”

It’s up for some debate, though, whether or not Agent Scully will be his friend. Based on the way she treated him yesterday, she’s seconds away from knocking his lights out. But she’d been there, hadn’t she? She was the first girl he’d brought around since Diana, which meant something. 

And Mulder, the poor sucker, was clearly head over heels. They’d gathered as much from his messages to them about her, which might as well open with _today I got lost in Agent Scully’s beautiful blue eyes_ …

“You think he has a chance?” Langly asks, which is what they’re all thinking. Byers shrugs, then shakes his head almost imperceptibly at his breakfast. 

“No way. She’s _far_ out of his league,” from Frohike. What they’re all thinking. Mulder is Mulder, sure, but—she is way out of his league. 

Poor guy. 


	5. Chapter 5

It isn’t often that other people see them at work. For agents stationed in Washington, they sure do travel to Florida and Oregon and Canada and Texas more than seems necessary. (Not that anyone would ever address it with AD Skinner—even if, surely, what they’re doing “chasing aliens” is mostly just vacation time and run of the mill homicides. Pendrell says differently, sometimes, when Agent Scully comes to ask him to run prints that came from a man who died twenty years ago, or to take a look at a tiny microchip she won’t explain the origin of—but it’s _clearly_ just vacation time.) 

But, for once, the alleged spooky thing happens in the city, so they’re around for half a week, out of the basement and into everyone’s space. 

The original crime scene is a bar not too far from Union Station, packed with tourists and a few locals. Witnesses—including the bartender at the time—say the victim seemed to be losing bone mass in his wrists, arms, neck, before collapsing to the floor in a gelatinous mass. 

“Spooky, huh,” Mulder tells her, exchanging a conspiratorial glance. This is their joke, now, it seems: do you think I’m spooky, Scully? check yes or no. And she can’t smile as she turns back to the bartender and says _we’re so sorry, we’re going to get this sorted out, you have nothing to worry about, we’ll let you know if we have any more questions_. And then maybe she smiles a little when she turns away. 

Mulder snaps on his latex and starts examining the area the gelatin had supposedly landed, marked the floor, and then disappeared. There won’t be any point looking with him until he finds something—and, honestly, a gelatin man? come on—so she starts talking to witnesses in the hopes that one of them will give her something a little more rational to pursue. 

He says her name, finally, a “Scully,” that’s no louder than the ambiance of the bar. But she hears him, always does, maybe because his voice has just the right cadence to attract her attention or maybe because she’s always waiting for him to call her name. 

She excuses herself and leaves one of the field agents to finish recording the statement, making herself present at his side. She looms over him for a moment, while he’s crouched on the ground, but he’s too distracted with whatever he’s found to notice the discrepancy.

“What is it?” she asks, crouching close next to him.

In response, he lifts one gloved hand to show her a fleshy, translucent goo that’s dangling from his index finger. He looks overjoyed. “Looks like we’ve got our man,” he says. 

“You’re sure it’s not just grape jelly?”

He gives her a look that she knows: he’s amused, and he’s too stubborn to admit there’s a possibility this isn’t alien even as a joke, and he knows that she’s really just as fascinated as he is, and he knows that she’s itching to get it to a lab so she can prove him wrong. 

Sometimes she thinks this look means _Scully, I could kiss you_. 

“I’ll be right back,” she says, and pushes herself up using his thigh to retrieve an evidence tube and label. 

There’s news: the victim was supposedly taking a trial medication for polymorphous light eruptions. The bartender says he ordered his burger rare—almost raw. 

“Mulder, don’t start,” she says, because she knows where this is going. He bares his teeth at her anyway, and curls his index fingers underneath his upper lip in a boyish depiction of fangs. 

“It’s no fun being trapped in a castle all day. Maybe a guy wants to live a little. Pick up an out of town girl.” He gestures to the bar with raised eyebrows. She shakes her head at him, thinks _Mulder, I could kiss you_. He is the only one who takes note of her genuine, albeit tampered, smile—but boy, does he ever take note. 

“Come on, Scully,” he says, snapping the latex off of his long fingers, and she acquiesces. Who else is going to take responsibility for asking about the possibility of this son/brother/friend being a vampire? Only ever them.

His hand hovers over her lower back as they leave the bar, and she doesn’t look bothered in the slightest. More heads follow them than anyone would ever admit to. 

And everyone thinks: _Are they—?_

And they always decide the same: _No, there’s no way_. 


	6. Chapter 6

He worries. 

Working by himself means that he worries only about himself and whatever case he’s working on. Working with Scully means that he worries about the case he’s working on and her—if she’s hurt, if she’s hungry, if she’s tired.

(The only consolation is that he knows she worries about him as much as he worries about her. He was always shitty at worrying about himself. The other consolation is that she falls asleep on his shoulder when she’s tired. He’s not sure what to call it that he knows her shampoo smells like sweet citrus, but that doesn’t feel much like a consolation.) 

He worries that she was not cut out for the X Files, only because she is too good to be ostracized. He has always been Spooky, has always told too many too quickly about Samantha and how she was taken from him, has always been laughed at for his abduction theories and alien sightings and missing time. That’s fine. His loneliness is etched into his side, and he keeps it with him quietly. It doesn’t even have the gall to try and hurt him very much anymore. 

But Scully: he notices that she makes plans with friends less the more time she works in the basement with him. She leaves early less often, she goes on less casual dates. (He will not rejoice. He _will not_.) He assumes it’s his fault, in one way or another, and wonders if she resents him at all for it. 

When he hears for the first time that she’s being called Spooky, too, he bristles. It’s not worth a reaction—Skinner might actually suspend him for strangling a lab tech for what he would call “a petty playground dispute, Agent Mulder.” But he sticks around less in the lab and becomes more brisk and mutters “sons of bitches,” and he leaves, and wishes he could slam the door. 

It isn’t fair to her, no matter how many times he has told her to her face that she has no faith or that she’s wrong or fakes being shy at coercing her into investigating something she rolls her eyes at. She is _different_. She isn’t with him, no matter her assignment or her willingness to indulge him or her increasing time spent in the basement with him. This truth he’s pursuing and the isolation that comes with it is _his_ cross to bear. She is _more_ than this, and he refuses to let her unexpected loyalty drag her down to nothing. Maybe she cares about him in a general sense, as a medical patient, but she doesn’t want this. He’s going to protect her from it.


	7. Chapter 7

Agent Leyla Harrison believes there’s a story in every receipt. 

She’s always liked numbers, and has always been very good with numbers, and one of the reasons that’s the case is that she doesn’t let the numbers become monotonous. She’s never been in the field, but that doesn’t bother her. It’s almost more fun to try and come up with the stories on her own with whatever she’s been given. 

And no one, _no one_ , has better stories than Agents Mulder and Scully. 

They present her with things that sound made-up: vampires, moth men, shapeshifters, aliens, so on and so forth. It’s fantastic. Why wouldn’t she believe them? Maybe Agent Mulder is spooky, but making up all of those creatures would surely get tiring. Not that Agent Scully believes him, either.

She doesn’t really understand that. Agent Scully’s been on the X Files for _years_ now, inching closer to a decade—why does she always look like she’d rather be somewhere else? Leyla herself would _kill_ to work on an X File. Especially with Agent Mulder. All that time in the car, and in motels… She just knows that if _she_ was the agent assigned to work the X Files, she’d be a little more enthusiastic. Agent Mulder would probably appreciate that.

The fact that Agent Mulder has very nice eyes, and is very tall has nothing to do with any of this. Neither does the fact that he looks like a very good kisser. Point is, she very much believes him. And he makes the numbers exciting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bc i love mulder too and i guess he's valid.... I Guess (plus: agent harrison <3)


	8. Chapter 8

“I’m telling you, it’s impossible,” says Agent Montgomery, one of two field agents assigned to the Vampire Case, says at Friday happy hour. “It was loud in there, right? Street traffic and everything. There’s no way she would have heard him.” 

There’s no question about that. There’s more of a question around why she puts up with all of this to begin with. It’s noble, is what it is. One of these days, they’ll work up the nerve to ask her to join them on a Friday after work. They’ll convince her to say all the things she wants to say about Spooky Mulder but never has. 

During a lull in the conversation, Pendrell rubs his index finger over condensation on his glass and says, thoughtfully, “You know, I don’t know why he wouldn’t just call her Dana.”

There’s a hum of agreement from around the table. Pendrell takes a long drink. “There’s nothing wrong with Dana. It’s a pretty name.”

Another hum of agreement. 

“Having a name like Fox, though. Got to be rough as hell.”

They drink to that out of sympathy. It’s a series of misfortunes, his name, because Fox is undoubtedly universally mocked—and what’s she going to call him in bed, _Agent Mulder_? Yeah, right. 

&&&

“ _Mulder_ ,” she gasps against the curved line of his throat, her leg hitching up just slightly higher. His name placard is digging into the side of her thigh; it’s going to leave a red, short line that will last for days. No one will see it but herself and Mulder, if he dares look long enough when her clothes are off. 

He had the sense to clean up any important files before he kissed her and backed her up against the desk, nudged her up to sit on the surface. (She protested, at first, as part of a caricature. Who would she be if she wasn’t pushing him to be better or more professional? “Mulder,” she’d said, her hands curling around his lapels. “Not right now.” He grins, and kisses warmly into her open mouth. “Come on, Scully, I’ll be quick.” She says, “You don’t know me well enough to make it quick,” and her fingers curl tighter. She’s a dirty liar because she likes to get a rise out of him this way. With the right teasing, he’ll have her falling apart in minutes.) 

He has two fingers inside her, thumb every so often circling her clit, cotton panties pulled down and stretched over the tops of her thighs. The door is locked, even though it doesn’t need to be—the chances of someone coming down here are slim to none—and she is warm and panting against him, and Mulder thinks he is the luckiest guy on the whole goddamn planet. In the universe. 

She gasps it again against him, a soft and pleading “Mulder,” that means _Yes, please_ and _Give me more_ and _I love you_. (Nah, he’s totally making up that last one. Wishful thinking.)

His free hand cups the back of her neck, fingers tangled in her hair and pulling enough to provide another sensation in place of something that would require the removal of more clothes. She arches up toward him, and her toes must be curling—because one heel falls with a heavy **clunk** to the floor. He grins, and presses half a dozen kisses against her hairline because he knows this means she’s close. “Yeah,” he says, dazedly, and his mouth presses steady to her forehead. His thumb rubs circles around her clit now in a steady rhythm, and he curls his fingers inside of her to hear the delicious, breathless moan that she tries to let out, and she’s thrusting shallowly against his fingers, and—

And she comes, and he can feel it on his fingers, the way that the rest of her body shivers, and she grabs his head and pulls him down for a forceful kiss, and she murmurs “ _Mulder_ ,” against his mouth, like a swear word and a supplication. His stomach flips. He thinks: _huh_. It’s funny, he thinks, his fingers pushing into her on instinct as she rides out the high of her orgasm and his front teeth clicking against hers once, twice as they kiss. She says his name it’s something she loves. Does she love him? (Wishful thinking. Or is it?) 

She sighs prettily into his shoulder once she’s come down while she regains her breath, and he would tell her she was the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen if she wouldn’t smack him in the arm for saying it. Not that it would make it less true. He kisses the top of her head instead, and listens to her breath stutter as he draws his fingers out of her. 

He hands her more than enough tissues to clean off her thighs.

Fuck.

He isn’t going to be able to focus for the rest of the day. This is always going to be a mistake, procedure-wise, but it is never going to be a mistake otherwise, so he won’t ever develop any impulse control—and maybe he’ll have her on the edge of the desk with his head between her legs before they clock out at five. 

She glances up from where she’s wiping between her legs, flushed and smiling and eyebrows raised (and oh my God, perfect) as if she’s already proving him wrong about the likelihood of this ever happening. All the proof in the world and she’d still deny she ever let him coax her into this. 

It could be her favorite thing, proving him wrong, if she ever actually did it. “Thank you, Agent Mulder.” 

She tosses the tissues in the waste bin beside the desk and pushes herself off of it, wobbling and lopsided as she pulls up her panties and slips her foot back into the lost heel. She’s still a little wobbly when she’s back on even footing; he’s impressed with himself. 

“Sure thing, Scully. Any time.”


	9. Chapter 9

There’s something amusing about it, the _Mr. and Mrs._ , that he can’t put his finger on. He’s heard it at least once a month for the past four years, and is sure she has heard it the same, but they don’t talk about it. She is relentless. She pursues him on the most idiotic and dangerous of quests, she takes care of him, she shows no sign of remorse that she rarely has Friday or Saturday night plans. (He rejoices a little.) Maybe what’s so funny about it is that she isn’t even remotely spooky—he hears the nickname, and he starts to think, dryly, I wish. 

(He dreams, once, that they are in bed together. He dreams often that they are in bed together, but this time she is dressed in his shirt and propped up on her side. She tells him, “Mulder, I had lunch with exactly six little grey men yesterday. You would have liked the burger. I believe, now.” He kisses her so fiercely that he wakes up, and then he laughs. It would offend her to know she concedes even in his dreams.) 

By now, the names she will respond to are far too many: Scully, Agent, Dana, or spin the wheel and get a combination. But that does not mean he fails to notice when they are walking to the parking garage together, and Agent Simms from Homicide calls “Hey, Spooky!” in greeting from a side hallway, and she turns her head to acknowledge it before he does. 

_It means nothing_ , he tells himself in his best Scully voice. _People react to sudden sounds, whether or not they’re meant for their ears, so the fact that she turned speaks more to her reflexes than her acceptance of this social pariah status_. 

_It means she doesn’t mind_ , argues the part of himself that always argues with Scully. _It means she is not as ashamed of you as you think she should be, as you think you want her to be. She is in this with you. She has chosen this_. 

Like any Scully-related hope he ever dares have, it has faded before the next afternoon. But the spark of it stays warm in him longer than his self-doubt would normally allow.


	10. Chapter 10

**_Bronco & Buckeye Roadside Inn/3 nights/2 rooms — $121.74_ **

**_Dave’s Steakhouse—$38_ **

**_Subaru Legacy—$99.89_ **

**_gas, attached receipts—$54.17_ **

**_Strong Bros. Hardware—$22.85_ **

**_Daytime Diner—$14.15_ **

**_The Hungry Dog—$17.08_ **

* * *

“Hi, Agent Mulder,” she says, when he brings their expense report up to her desk. It’s mostly Scully who brings the reports, these days. She usually looks put-out about it, and she never does the story justice when Leyla asks what happened. 

But Agent Mulder—who she’d like to think considers her a friend—always smiles at her, and sometimes sticks around to chat when he’s not in a rush to get somewhere else. 

“Fifteen feet of rope?” she asks. Prompting. He likes talking about cases. 

“Yeah, well. It was a little overkill. I’d never made a lasso before, so how was I supposed to know?”

“You were making a lasso? What for?” 

“Centaurs gone rogue."

“Really?”

“You’d think the half human thing would give them a better sense of logic, but as it turns out, they prefer to think with the bottom half, too.” He grins at her. He has a very nice smile, too, not that she’s really counting. They’re trained to be observant. 

She does have his story all worked out, though. He’s married to his work, of course. He’s the only one who’s fighting for these cases in the way they should be fought for. It just means that he doesn’t have time for personal entanglements. But, maybe, if the right girl came along…

She laughs, just for good measure. He probably needs someone to laugh at his jokes, too. 


	11. Chapter 11

He is one of those Academy jokes that everyone pretends to understand when they first start, and, by virtue of their pretending, eventually come to genuinely understand. Spooky Mulder is the most valued agent at the FBI and the most laughed at—because he’s so convinced in the existence of E.T., Extraterrestrials. He's the best profiler to have passed through Quantico, has caught killers in the field himself and created profiles so accurate they've caught even more. Rumor has it he's switching departments soon because he'd rather be chasing UFOs. 

She has never met him, nor seen him in any library or coffee shop or restaurant, and so she does not know him well enough to really tease. (Word is, from classmates who have encountered him wherever, that if he wasn’t so _weird_ , he’d actually be incredibly attractive. She doesn’t know about that, either.) 

Secretly, Dana Scully admires Fox Mulder for at least the thick skin he must have. He is years older than they are, and she would be willing to bet that none of them know him very well at all. But they tease him in social circles like he is their friend who would laugh with them; they tease him like he was not the top of his class at Oxford and at Quantico, like he has not had an unbelievable success in solving cases which had previously been impossible. 

Secretly, Dana Scully admires Fox Mulder because he’s pursuing a hopeless mission that no one understands or supports. They are training her to save lives, but that is what they train everyone to do here. She has the need to be the best, the most unique, the most successful at the mission she has chosen for herself. But sometimes, best and most successful isn’t enough. Everyone can be successful. It has been a long time since she’s stolen her mother’s cigarettes, but she buys a pack and sits with her back against a tree and smokes three of them, listening to the insects around her and looking up at the night sky. She thinks, _maybe a hopeless mission wouldn’t be so bad_. It feels like the rebellion she has always been looking for.

Secretly, Dana Scully admires Fox Mulder because she is not sure what she believes sometimes, and he must. She wears her cross around her neck and runs the thin chain between her thumb and index finger, but it has been five months and four days since her last confession. She is almost entirely sure she does not believe in the existence of E.T., Extraterrestrials, but maybe she wants to, even if it’s only the part of her human nature that wants to entertain the notion of some higher power, that wants to entertain the notion of the fantastic. 

Secretly, of course. If she doesn’t know Fox, Spooky Mulder enough to tease him, she certainly doesn’t know enough to praise him. Sometimes, though, she does wonder why they have to call him Spooky if they have to make fun. His name is _Fox_ , after all. 

Later. She shakes his hand, and thinks he’s funny for starting with a joke. He has less hope about this partnership than she does. 

“Actually, I’m looking forward to working with you,” she says, politely. She wonders how long it will be until her secrets are out. 

It’s only a matter of time.


	12. Chapter 12

It has recently become an object of discussion what Agent Scully does after work. 

Maybe she sees a movie every Friday, or reads 19th century novels, or hosts wine and cheese nights with girlfriends. Maybe she spends time with her family, or cooks foie gras, or knits scarves. Whatever it is, it must be an active social life that doesn’t involve much desire for dating around. 

Because, when it comes down to it, Agent Scully is the type of woman who seems at all times vaguely unavailable. She never talks about having anyone, husband or boyfriend or otherwise. And any guy would ask her out—boy, would they ever—but she gives off the impression that she’s with someone, a serious someone who’s met her family and who plans to have, hold, cherish her as long as they both shall live. Et cetera. Everyone respects that notion, respects _her_ too much to be the chump who asks her out. 

And maybe there would be some suspicion that it was, well, _you know_ , but there’s no way. There’s no way she’s spending her weekends with Fox Mulder—for the obvious reasons, of course, but because the guy is always doing something strange. He works weekends all the time, never goes out for drinks or dinner, makes comments about monster-hunting or whatever if he’s ever in the right place to mention it. 

Plus, there are plenty of other rumors about Fox Mulder that have nothing to do with any allegation of involvement with Dana Scully. In fact, it’s the opposite: that Agent Mulder is a bafflingly well-connected man. He consorts with Senators, with CIA, with government inside and out of the FBI. It adds up, why he never gets fired or defunded. He has other confidants, other people who _really_ believe. 

So there’s no way he doesn’t let Agent Scully have her weekends. To do whatever it is she wants to do. 

&&&

“It is abhorrent that you don’t have a bed,” Scully tells him. 

He might believe her disdain, if it was the sort of thing she had the right to be disdainful about. But this isn’t Scully-disdain-worthy: those things are when he overworks her, when he pushes his theory too far without considering hers, when he takes on the role of her protector too strongly, when he neglects to tell her things, when he flirts just fine with others but refuses to let her be anything but his. So on and so forth. 

(And, if he is honest, she does not get mad at him as often or as intensely as she should for any of these things. For any of the ways he has wronged her.)

But tonight is Friday, and they are wine drunk and feeling slippery on his leather couch, and there is no disdain in her voice—just the warm lilt of her seduction, curling around him and binding him to her point to point. Her weight is settled entirely on his hips, and her hands are rubbing over his abdomen and chest, slowly rucking up his shirt in the process, and he thinks he’s such a goddamn lucky son of a bitch that he might be dreaming, so the most he manages is a lazy, curled grin in response and “There’s your word of the day, Scully. Ab-horr-ent. Care to use that in a sentence?” 

“I just did,” she says, wry, pleased with her own disruption of his mental facilities. He shifts restlessly. He wants to ask her to marry him. Her fingernails graze his rib cage. His brain sparks. Short circuit. Reset. 

“No,” he says, belatedly, hand sliding up on her thigh. “No, uh, I have a bed, you know, it’s—“ he jerks his head to the adjacent wall, and she snorts. 

“The water bed, you mean. In the bedroom that’s stacked nearly floor to ceiling with discarded files and Playboy magazines.” 

He scrunches his nose a little. “The water bed isn’t my fault,” he tells her, like he’s told her a hundred times. She believes him, though she will never say it, even for such a small thing. It is always this way with them: unexplainable, unbelievable, phenomenal. Her FBI man owns a water bed he never purchased or installed. Okay. 

“And neither is the mirror on the ceiling,” she says, saccharine-sweet, and leans down to kiss his mouth warmly. (The mirror, she knows, definitely isn’t his fault. If Mulder thought it necessary to install a mirror on his ceiling, the room would not be stacked floor to ceiling with Playboy magazines. He has never allowed himself to be so openly, cheesily seductive. Even with her. It is this that makes her think she might let him take advantage of it with her, sometime. Just once. Just to see the dopey look on his face after she rides him until he sees stars. And them, in the stupid, unexplainable mirror above hid waterbed.) He protests unhappily against her mouth with a muffled _hmph_ , faux-offended at the idea he’s some kind of Hefner style deviant. Some Playboy fan he is. 

He will never stop marveling at the fact that she will be willing—eager, even—to kiss a man on the couch he sleeps on most nights, if you could call it sleeping, and after she’s nitpicked at his more unsavory habits, after she’s reminded him that his space is both frat-bachelor and slick-pimp, neither of which are desirable. But he is desirable, to her, and he starts to get what it might feel like to _not_ believe something. 

She says, “I don’t think I’m interested in that so-called bed,” against his mouth, kisses trailing down to the line of his jaw. 

“Jeez, Scully, you sure know how to get a guy hard,” he says, as if he’s miles away from being turned on. 

“I know,” she says, and shifts her hips slowly over his evidently noticeable erection. 

Shit. He has really got to stop bluffing around her. 

“Touché,” he says, his mouth a little bit drier than it was a minute ago, and his thumb slides over the seam of her jeans at her inner thigh.

She lifts herself up with a happy _mm-mm_ , and he murmurs “Scully,” about as petulantly as it could be said. One hand reaches underneath her to open the button on his jeans and nothing else, and then she settles back on him. 

His hand returns to her thigh, and this time she lets it wander. She has several options: let him undress her only as much as it will take to be inside of her, lean over and let him see her bra so he’ll insist they undress fully first, offer to sit on his face, kiss him for half an hour until she’s soaking and tell him to keep his hands above the belt like they’re teenagers, slide down between his legs until her mouth has reduced him to her name and her name only as he trembles underneath her. The possibilities furl out before her in a multitude of pleasant adventures which all have the same pleasant ending(s). Choosing which one she wants _now_ seems impossible. 

But she is unhurried. They have all weekend.


	13. Chapter 13

More often than not, now, he regrets introducing Scully to the Gunmen at all—because it’s starting to feel like he’s being  _ replaced _ . She buzzes them in at the front door and says “Hi, boys. We need your help,” before they even look at him, and Frohike doesn’t even bother flirting with her anymore. They all like her too much. 

She steps into the office in the early afternoon with coffee while he has them on the phone, and says “Oh, tell them I said hello,” as she deposits a cup on his desk. It hits him very suddenly that, while Scully is an uncompromisingly nice person to people who deserve it, she has no reason to behave like a friend to the Gunmen. 

She’s become one of them. And she  _ likes _ it. 

“You know she has to be into you,” Langly says, at some point, and Mulder knows they’re all gathered around the receiver—knows that they, MulderandScully, are a topic of conversation. He doesn’t think he likes that, but he knows there’s no stopping it, either. 

He rolls his eyes and tucks the phone between his shoulder and ear, humming so they’ll move past it but unwilling to agree. They’re wrong half the time, anyway. More than half. 

“Really, Mulder,” Frohike chimes in, “no girl would hang around with a guy as weird as you unless she was  _ really _ interested.” 

“You guys are so funny,” Mulder says, tone dry. “As a matter of fact, there’s a conspiracy for your next page one,” he says, and then clicks the receiver down before they can say anything else that’ll get his hopes up. 

“What was that about?” Scully asks over her shoulder, thumbing through files in a way that looks absentminded enough. He shakes his head. And he wonders— _ is she? Could she be? _ This, the pursuit of this truth, has been his life since he was twelve, but it has never been Scully’s. 

But he would be endlessly stupid to assume that Scully is still here because of some vapid infatuation. If he was the only thing keeping her here, she would have been gone a long time ago. He knows that Scully is fearless, devoted; she knows they are saving lives, and she is just as devoted to finding the truth now as he is. 

She is everything he doesn’t deserve and nothing he would ever ask for, and maybe it is inevitable that he has her anyway. It was certainly inevitable that she have him; she has had him for a long time. 

So while there’s no chance in hell she’s only here for him, maybe there’s a chance she’s into him anyway. Maybe—

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “Stupid theory.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just wanted to say tysm for all the kudos and comments <3 anytime I receive something new I fully lose my shit. I come unhinged. you're all so sweet and your validation tucks me in at night and kisses me ever so softly on the forehead


	14. Chapter 14

**_Harbor Cottage Motel/3 nights/1 room—$82.79_ **

**_Q Street Diner—$13_ **

**_Buick Riviera—$101.15_ **

**_Q Street Diner—$17.50_ **

**_Heavenly Deli—$23.47_ **

**_Club Coffee—$7.57_ **

**_gas, attached receipts—$42.14_ **

* * *

“You must have been really paying attention in those cost-cutting seminars,” Agent Harrison tells Scully, glancing over the report she’s just received. 

Scully hums her confusion—she’s been looking toward the hallway, though Leyla can’t really see what in particular she’s taken by—and blinks, shakes her head, returns her gaze to the desk.

“You saved quite a bit of money in Maine.”

“Oh,” Scully says, and she smiles. It seems a little forced. 

“Oh! Here it is. It’s the motel. Just one room?”

“They were booked otherwise.” Just like we rehearsed, Dana. It’s not a lie. There weren’t any other motels in town. You had no other choice. You tried to make him sleep on the couch. You really, really tried. It isn’t your fault he only packs the boxers he knows you like these days. (It might be your fault that you packed the little red set you know he likes.) It isn’t your fault that he’s a towering giant, or that his calves hung off the couch, or that you both sleep better when you’re entangled anyway. You had no other choice. God works in mysterious ways. 

You have an alibi.

“I can’t imagine staying in little places like this so often, really. You don’t get tired of it?” She scribbles down a note. “Then again, I guess you’re working, so you don’t use them much.”

Scully’s lips twist up in a brief, polite smile. “Just for sleeping.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if mulder & scully..... went on a work trip...... but there was only one room available...... what then.....


	15. Chapter 15

It’s just that the whole charade has gone on for way longer than it should—as a matter of fact, it’s starting to look like Agent Scully is _interested_ in this stuff. 

Not that it’s true, of course. Ask Agent Scully if she believes in aliens, and she’d give you a glare and barely-there smile that suggests you’re the stupid one for asking. But it doesn’t stop her from pursuing their strange cases with wholehearted devotion.

She brings pieces of squishy bone and unidentifiable bacteria samples and grey, elongated toes for analysis; she asks for toxicology reports on blood samples that usually come up with way too many unknowns; she pulls birth certificates of people who have supposedly, literally disappeared into thin air. She treats all of these things seriously. 

What’s more, she never says a bad word about Agent Mulder—which she really should. They’re all expecting her to share funny stories about Spooky Mulder; she’s an assumed part of the inside joke, now, and she’s the person with the most knowledge about what the joke is. But she remains steadfastly polite about Agent Mulder, even when they prod. Sometimes she even defends him, which is really something else. She says _he’s_ _a great agent_ or _he’s unconventional, sure, but his work produces results_.

It must be something she does out of pity. This goes beyond respect, really. Respect is what you show your colleague who, at times, misfiles reports or loses track of a suspect in a foot chase or draws the wrong conclusion from a piece of evidence. Respect must be impossible for Agent Scully, who has to deal with all of this. She pities him, then, which is why she won’t ever tease. And hell, who can blame her? She’s a great woman. Considerate of the feelings of others, even if “others” is just Spooky. 

“Do you think he buys it? That she’s into the work?” 

Maybe they will add _Fucking incredible actress_ to the list or admirable things about her. 

Not many suspect Agent Scully of actually having faith in the X Files—how could she? She’s too smart for it. And not even remotely spooky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops 100% forgot to post the rest of these little bad boys!!!! 😳 but i'm back for good. ty for all the comments and kudos in my absence!!
> 
> while i'm here, a little plug for my new [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/dankneedevito), where i blog about txf and a bunch of other stuff. follow me and we can be besties 🥰


	16. Chapter 16

“Agent Scully?”

It’s too early for this. Her lower back is still sore from three days ago, when she was shoved backward into a cement block at a Naval yard in North Carolina. She loves her job, she really does, but she’s starting to wonder how these people are starting to find them so often, proposing some case that makes Mulder salivate when she’s actually looking forward to paperwork all day. Before she’s even had the time to consider whether or not she wants a scone. 

She turns around, anyway, hand hovering near the pocket her phone rests in. Forget the coffee, Mulder. We’re headed to West Virginia. “Hi,” she says. 

Only, the man standing in front of her doesn’t look like he’s about to report a paranoid UFO sighting. He’s tall-ish, though only an inch or two taller than her in these heels. Lanky, hazel-eyed. He looks like the kind of guy she would have flirted with in college. Hell. He looks like he’s _in_ college. She’s starting to wonder whether she’s old, now, whether she still remembers how to flirt in a way that doesn’t involve extraterrestrial remains in some form, and it’s definitely too early for those thoughts, so she starts “Can I—“

“I’m a big fan,” he says, and she realizes with some level of confusion that he’s beaming at her. 

“Oh,” she says, startled into a smile. Oh.

So, the movie had flopped. Of course it had. It was, objectively, a terrible movie. But it hit home with the core demographic of abductees, conspiracy theorists, and science-fiction-fantasy nuts. It’s significantly increased the interest in their work—and, according to the Gunmen, subscription to their publication is at an all time high—and that’s good, as far as it concerns the Truth, but otherwise. 

What does he want her to say? That she’s thankful, and that she taught Tea Leoni to run in heels? Actually, that wouldn’t be so bad. It’s interesting enough for the back pages of a gossip magazine, but not anywhere near interesting enough for the cover. 

“It’s not true, is it? That whole romance subplot between you and Agent Mulder? Or AD Skinner? There’s some debate about who the romantic lead is, ultimately, but it seems to me like it’s all cheap Hollywood.” 

She blinks, maybe a little heavily. She thinks about Mulder’s Hollywood tux, and she thinks about his stupid day ties, and she thinks about the way he’s going to smile at her when she comes into his office this morning with a scone he’s going to eat more than half of. 

“No,” she says, and she finds herself amused. Maybe it’s the thought of Mulder’s face seeing Tea Leoni confess her love for Richard Gere. “No, that’s not true. Agent Mulder and I find the mission of our work to be the most important thing we pursue. The screenwriter who followed us wasn’t at all focused on that mission. There are plenty of... embellishments.” 

He’s excited with her explanation. Mulder, whose heart had been so hurt by the dismissal of their work, the dismissal of them, would be pleased with it too. “I knew it,” he says. “I’m always saying, there’s no chance. Everybody knows how no-nonsense you are, Agent Scully. For them to suggest you’d have the time or desire to strike up some sort of romance with one of your co-workers is hilarious.” 

She steps forward in the line, is pleased she’s next in line and will be able to escape this conversation. Mulder will want cream, foam, and sugar (though he’s claiming that he only drinks his coffee black, as if this means something to her as a woman or a physician) and he will eat half of her breakfast unless she brings him an identical thing, and he’d hated the blueberry scone last time, so—

“Now that I know it’s all made up,” he continues, “which one is it that you think is more ridiculous? Skinner’s really more the heartthrob type, if you discount the bald thing. The best move they made in casting Gere was giving Skinner a full head of hair. Besides, the dynamic of a forbidden superior is much more appealing. And why else would he keep funding Mulder’s quests? Clearly, he’s got some personal interest.” 

Her hand drifts toward her phone again. She knows how much he would pout to hear even a few seconds of this. It would be very funny. And she would have an excuse to stroke his hair during the workday.

“And Mulder? Really? It’s lazy writing, if you ask me. He’s a total crank, and having _you_ end up with _him_ assumes that just spending a few hours a day with the guy in the basement makes you fall in love with him. Skinner’s the obvious choice.”

She laughs, suddenly, cheeks flushed a light pink. “Skinner’s the obvious choice,” she says, and doesn’t even think to sound ironic about it. 

He writes his number on a post it and hands it to her casually before he leaves, while she’s mixing cinnamon into her drink. It’s signed, in a way that she only would have found clever fifteen years ago, _Richard Gere?_

He tells her she looks more natural in the g-woman getup than Tea Leoni does, then slips out the door. 

She asks Mulder to bring her the phone from her coat pocket just after lunch. She goes for a breath of fresh air an hour later. When she comes back, he is pouting. The post it has been torn up viciously and thrown into the trash.

She has an excuse to stroke his hair during the workday. 

_ &&& _

“Scully,” he says, and at first she isn’t sure that she hears him. She will assume that he is saying her name, as something he seems to be perpetually saying; he had just groaned it out against her neck, the shell of her ear. 

Still. Two orgasms in, and she’s feeling sated and hazy, floating somewhere far above this Beverly Hills California King. She will assume that the possibility of her imagining her name in his blissed-out way is as high as the possibility of him actually saying it. 

And she is drunk—embarrassingly drunk, more than a woman of her age and her job title and her life choices should be. She would call this college drunk, except that she’s drunk on champagne she shudders to think about the price of. Skinner is going to kill them. 

“Skinner is going to _kill_ us,” she says whether he said her name or not, rolling toward him with a lazy grin. Her hand reaches toward his hair. He is her conspirator, always, the Bureau’s credit card tucked into the back pocket of his slacks. 

Slacks which were dropped, very unceremoniously, by the door. (And her headband, his Oxfords and socks, her heels, his tux jacket, her dress, his bow tie, her stockings, his undershirt, her lace lingerie set, his boxers.) His prowess, her orgasms, this night curls through her bones warmly. She _wants_. 

“Scully,” he says, insistent, ignoring her. He’s steadfast on his side of the bed; his brow is furrowed, little wrinkles just above his nose. She knows this look—this is the look he gets when he can’t get a tie to tie in a neat knot, when he realizes he doesn’t know the shelf life of fresh produce, when he thinks he’s in danger of being proven wrong. 

She reaches forward and finds the crease of his brow with her fingers, strokes over it. The muscle tension decreases, his face settling out, but his eyes keep the same concern. “Hmmm,” she says, and that’s it. He doesn’t need her permission, but he has it: _I’m listening. I’m always listening. Go ahead_.

“Scully,” a third time. “Do you think I look like Richard Gere?”

She almost laughs. She wants to laugh. It is laugh-worthy material, this: he is feeling inconsequential in comparison to a movie star. Her Mulder. It isn’t so surprising, really. The behavioral scientist in her knows that this is just a reflection of insecurities inherent to the individual man, et cetera et cetera. Everybody wants to be a movie star. And the occasional movie-watcher in her knows that Garry Shandling really wasn’t a fair choice. Not after becoming intimately acquainted with Mulder, the slope of his nose, the clench of his jaw, the hair that sticks up on the back of his head when he wakes up in the morning. 

But she doesn’t laugh, because his feelings have been hurt, and he is too sweet in moments like this with her, unguarded, and she can’t bring herself to tease him. 

“No,” she says, and she curls her hand in his hair. “I never found Richard Gere to be particularly attractive.”

His face falls and lights up in the space of seconds. She would _kill_ for this look from him more often. Aided by the champagne, he is unabashedly _delighted_ : he smiles, showing his teeth, his blue-green eyes sparkle, there's not a tense muscle in his face. 

“Liar,” he accuses, and she shakes her head. Dana Scully is not the type to fawn over traditional men—if this untraditional man was not proof enough.

He kisses her like it’s the only thing he can stand to do, rolls her over, pins her to the mattress with his weight. His hand slips between her legs. He makes her come a third time, and she doesn’t even accuse him of trying to prove himself. 

If this is going Hollywood, she thinks, in a daze, she _really_ doesn’t need a movie star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if i said hollywood a.d. was the best episode of the x files would you take away my msr card. just hypothetically.


End file.
